Laboratory incubations, gas and solute analyses, and stable isotope methods were used to investigate the pathway of methanogenesis in 25 wetland peats of varying vegetation composition along a latitudinal gradient in Alaska. Sites were divided into gross vegetation classes indicative of tropic status: mostly (class 1); plus vascular plants (i.e., ) (class 2); mostly vascular plants, but still containing (class 3), and; sites dominated by vascular plants with no visible species (class 4). The magnitude of CO2, acetate and CH4 as end products of anaerobic metabolism varied greatly, but ratios of end product formation indicative of differences in the pathway of C flow and methanogenesis corresponded with vegetation classes, especially [...]
